Moments

Drinking in the Day

Moments of discovery are always a thrill, and so I sought out a new area to hike, the James Peak Wilderness, under which runs a railroad tunnel. Even the area’s name seems mysterious—East Portal.

Driving up, I turned onto a dirt road that led west and slow danced around, under, and over the solid, symmetrical train tracks. Signs warned of “heavy truck traffic,” and early on, I waited for one long truck to thread under the train tracks. Another one zoomed past a few miles farther on, taking up more than its fair share of the road.

Other moments abounded. On the border of the forest and a horse-studded meadow, the roof of a log cabin steamed as the morning’s first sun warmed it. An old yellow schoolhouse stood alone in the meadow, with bald peaks in the distance.

At the parking area near Moffat Tunnel, a single green boxcar sat abandoned on a side track. The tunnel, built in 1927, was coated black with diesel smoke and dirty streaks of rain.

Suddenly I heard a swooshing sound, then a bell ringing, and the tunnel produced a Union Pacific train. Three yellow-and-smoke-smudged locomotives emerged, leading cars full of coal--formed in mountain darkness, the small black nuggets were extracted once again into light. Another engine strained in the middle of the train, and two pushed at the rear. After the train whined down the track, a whirring began at the tunnel, as fans blew the engines’ spent breath out of the mountain’s depths.

Past the tunnel, the trail rose through fir trees draped with coarse, wooly moss. After climbing steeply to treeline, I saw the lakes cupped beneath the peaks.

An ill-mannered, unleashed, and very large dog belonging to people fishing at the lake tried to take my sandwich right out of my hand. I moved to a quieter spot to escape hearing the three of them fuss at the dog, and each other.

Above the quiet meadow, afternoon clouds began building and drifting behind the ridge. A white stream sashayed out of the lake. And bees sucked from pink fireweed blossoms—likewise drinking in the day.

• More tunnel and lakes pics

Being Here

Saturday’s moments involved running the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon at altitude on a day of hot, strong sun. That I finished with a halfway decent time was due only to the fact that the run went downhill from 8,500’ to 7,500’; it was quite the challenge.

Sunday marked my return to the peaks, at long, long last. Pawnee Peak, at just under 13,000’, was on the agenda. The hike first passes Isabelle Lake, set among wildflowers, small glaciers, and rocky peaks. The weather that day was what it almost always is in Colorado on summer mornings—cool, cloud-free, with yellow sun and bright blue skies.

As I neared the lake and pulled out my camera, so did two college students who were speaking what seemed to be Italian. As they passed, one of the boys turned to me and said in a thick accent, “Here is beautiful, eh?”

“Here” was beautiful, indeed—and to be here on that exquisite Sunday morning was nothing short of divine.

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When were you in the moment last?  Share with us!

• More Pawnee Peak pics

Seeing Lights

One of the many ways in which Colorado’s landscape varies from the East Coast’s is the ability to see for miles. The foothills above Boulder are front-row seats for watching the weather on the plains.

Friday night, clouds pink with sunset rolled off the foothills.

Then, a storm so far away its thunder was out of hearing range flashed hot pink strobes and startled white x-rays. One yellow lighting bolt undulated sideways like a serpent sliding from cloud to cloud.

For many moments, I watched my own personal light show.

 

Boing, Boing

Each morning last week, I strapped into a harness, climbed a ladder or scaffolding, clipped in to webbing and bungee cords, and hung from the ceiling. This five-day class in bungee dancing was part of an Aerial Dance Festival--and taught me to fly. 

The best moments? Hanging upside down, hanging parallel to the floor and looking up at the ceiling, pushing off the floor and springing into mid-air jumping jacks, and looking back over one shoulder and soaring backwards. Ah, to have wings!

Wide-Eyed

The mission of my blog—to share all kinds of moments—is being tested already.

My intent today was to share simply a moment from a trail run—the joy of bouncing from rock to rock along a red dirt path, the freedom of my hair slipping out of its clip and flying in the wind as I ran, the beauty of a cloud that changed from fiery melon to pale blue to muted fuchsia as the sunset’s rays stroked it.

But I returned home after dark to another “moment,” to be sure.

I am phobic of spiders. There were three in the bathroom—one medium, the other two huge. After smashing them in a cold sweat, I picked my makeup bag off the floor so that none could get in it—and another big one was hiding beneath the bag, its long spindly legs stretched above and below its body in sheaves. Trembling, I killed it, too, plus the small one circling under the scales. I feel remorse for their deaths, but my terror far outweighs it.

The weather turned hot today; they have come inside, likely from under the wooden porch, to lie against the bathroom’s cool stone tiles. One is still on the loose; I last saw it scuttling under the kitchen table. So far, I’ve not seen any in the bedroom. Still, I fear it will be a night of wide-eyed moments, and a fearful trip to the loo come dawn.

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• New pics

Howling

To say that the last two days have been fun would be a stretch. My beloved cat is sick, and he is not adjusting well to the new kitty sitter. Both are 1,700 miles away. I miss my Jerrie, and I’ve inconvenienced several dear friends and family today by not being there to take care of him.

In addition, I am working this week; one client is being pushy, and another took a swipe at me in an e-mail. I willingly brought my computer to Boulder to see what it was like to be here and not be on vacation--to find out how I liked actually living here. Three days in, my experiment has already yielded results. It is possible to be unhappy here, after all.

And so I was tempted to skip writing a blog entry today. But sharing only the best of times is not what this blog is about. It’s about celebrating the small moments that happen every day--good days and bad.

As I went for a walk at sunset this evening out on the prairie, the scenery was spectacular. The dark bulk of the mountains behind Boulder crowned the wide, open grasslands, and delicate clouds spread out across the sky. Still, I couldn’t fully absorb it. The day’s worries about the cat and work kept bumping around in my head.

As I headed back to the car, I reached a small culvert. As my foot touched the wooden footbridge, I heard a squeaking, whining cry unfurl, only slightly in the distance, from the culvert’s right bank--and on the left, an answering call: “Oooh, oooh, oooo.” On the right, several voices barked out a reply: “Oooh, oooh, oooo” and “Ow, ow, ow….” Coyotes! It was my first time hearing a pack in full chorus.

After mere seconds, they fell silent. But for one amazing moment, they howled for me.

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• More pics

And thanks to Cat for sharing her cat moments! Cat, I'll look forward to hearing about the special moments on your trip as well.

Mistaken Identity

Today, windblown and rumpled after a hike, I stopped in the grocery store in Nederland. At the checkout counter was a small display of Chicken Poop Lip Gloss, with the slogan "Grandpa says if your lips are chapped, put chicken poop on them so you don't lick them," and then the disclaimer, "Contains no poop."

"That's disgusting," I said to the clerk, a 50-something man with the bushy beard and unkempt hair that's characteristic of this little mountain town. "Does anybody buy that stuff?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling. "We sell a lot of it in the summer, when the tourists are in town and need something to waste their money on."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. That and the polished rocks at the store across the street. Ha, ha!"

"Oh, right. Ha, ha!" I said as I walked out, enjoying a moment of mistaken identity.

* * *

Thanks so much to Eirik for sharing his moment in the sun!  That's awesome.  Anyone else have a moment to share?

Biscuits

After two and one-half days on the road, I arrived late afternoon in Boulder.

The last two days on the road were full of moments--some fun, and some in Missouri.

• In Lexington, Kentucky, expansive stud farms lined the highway, their immaculate stables and decorative fountains looking like a golf club for horses. At one farm, a cluster of horses grazed calmly on the top of a hill, their sleek bodies silhouetted against the humid sky.

• In Illinois, a storm-blue cloud released a frenzy of big-dropped rain, and the temperature free fell from 95 to 75 degrees in minutes.

• Ah, Missouri. Judging from the proliferation of adult superstores, one at every other highway exit, the “Show-Me-State” should be called the “Show-Me-Everything” state. And if its denizens learn to keep their clothes on, they could easily change their name to the “Show-Me-How-to-Drive” state.
  
  Why? Here are some examples. One car driven only by a cloud of curly white hair merged onto the freeway at 2 mph and came to a complete stop, traffic barely moved for hours in St. Louis, and illogical highway access roads had cars playing Twister. I knew I had been there too long when at the bottom of an exit ramp I encountered a traffic circle with a center curbing that hid the yellow line; I curved over the curb and drove in the island, adding my tire marks to the many already there. Clearly by then someone needed to show me how to drive.

• An hour of nighttime driving from Kansas City to Topeka carried me on to a new landscape, the open plains. In the sky’s remaining light, a giant cone-shaped cloud rose to nearly the center of the sky, and a single star cut through the dusky blue. Baked by the day’s heat, the prairie diffused a steamy mist. Scents of grasses, dung, and the cool, flat, neutral smell of water under a bridge pushed in through the open windows.

• Morning brought trivia from the hotel desk clerk, a Kansas native—the settlers got motion sickness from the waving grass, she said, and the constant sound of wind blowing through the wagons and chinked log cabin walls caused mental illness.

• For hours, the view was one of openness; undulating plains, many hues of yellow and green grasses chasing in the wind, and strong blue sky accented by thin white stripes of clouds. Most people dread driving through Kansas; I find it stunningly beautiful.

• A single stalk of corn grew through a crack in the pavement on the shoulder of I-70.

• A field of sunflowers burst yellow onto the prairie.

• The back view of an old aqua-colored pickup truck with two people in the front seat cresting a hill in eastern Colorado, with a dry butte in the background, was a moment in time travel, back to the days when the West was less settled and road trips were king.

Yet perhaps the best moment in the end of my own road trip was this afternoon, when a local radio station was broadcasting live from the rodeo in Kit Carson, Colorado. A woman was interviewing a girl whose dog had won a prize for obedience.

“What does your dog do?” the announcer asked.

“He can sit, stay, and LAY down!” said the girl, in a confident, happy voice.

“You’ve done a great job training him,” the announcer replied. “Now, you entered some goodies you cooked, too, didn’t you? What did you make?”

“BIS-cuits!” the girl offered.

The poise, calm, and pure joy in her voice were striking. I worry about e-mail, deadlines, and meetings. At a young age, she is fulfilled by simplicity--the unhurried, soulful pleasures of fluffy baked goods, a well-behaved dog, and a Saturday at the rodeo.

And I loved being there, on a Colorado radio wave, to share her moment.

Boulder Bound

“Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.”

The artist and Sister Mary Corita Kent wrote those wise words. She recognized that fully living the small, poignant moments can be more rewarding than wrapping up the biggest accomplishments. This blog, launched on the day I loaded up my SUV “Mountain” and headed West to spend a month living out my fantasy of being a Coloradoan, will celebrate moments from my journey—and I hope will inspire you to share your special moments as well.

***

I wish I could say that my proudest moment today was locking my house and driving out of Arlington, but it wasn’t. Leaving never is. Despite my love of travel, saying goodbye to home, hearth, and cat makes me long to curl up in my comfortable, familiar space and stay forever.

Today, it was my favorite quote from Mark Twain that got me out the door: “Twenty years from now, you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

And off Mountain and I went, through the heat of an East Coast summer, the green farmlands of Maryland, and the softly forested mountains of West Virginia where bumper stickers said simply “coal,” and road signs listed “Meadowlands Mall” as an attraction.

On the local country radio station came a song I’d never heard before by Tim McGraw, called “Live Like You Were Dying.” It starts with a man being diagnosed with an illness, and continues with his saying how from then on he then lived—really lived. “I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing, I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu….”

Bound for Boulder with my radio turned up, I sang along off-key. It was a great moment indeed.

What moment did you love today?